I had the privilege last week to give a keynote address at the 2010 Cleveland Clinic Medical Innovation Summit. It was inspiring to be in the midst of so many health care leaders. Admittedly, each of us may have our differences, but we unite in a common purpose: advancing the cause of medical innovation for the benefit of patients.

It was appropriate that the summit was held at the Cleveland Clinic. As anyone in Cleveland can tell you, the innovation developed here is extraordinary. Beyond changing the practice of medicine in the United States, the Clinic has also advanced far beyond its borders, carrying health and science innovation worldwide. You can now go to Toronto and Abu Dhabi and find Cleveland Clinic facilities, which deliver on the promise of what the practice of medicine can be.

The exportation of innovation is not limited to academic medical institutions. It's at the core of what we in the medical technology industry do every day -- collaborating with leading physicians, applying our expertise and creating new devices and therapies to alleviate pain, restore health and extend life around the world.

This year's summit was focused on two major health issues -- diabetes and obesity. Beyond the human impact of millions of unnecessary and debilitating complications, significantly impacted quality of life and premature deaths, the financial cost of these diseases is staggering: billions in additional health care expenditures and trillions in lost economic growth.

As important as this meeting was, our work falls short unless we make a galvanized commitment to addressing the burden of chronic disease. This includes not only diabetes and obesity, but also cardiovascular disease, cancer and respiratory ailments that collectively comprise the majority of chronic diseases, which are responsible for 60 percent of deaths globally.

As the worldwide prevalence of diabetes nears 300 million, and the number of people with diabetes predicted to double or triple in the United States by 2050, these unprecedented challenges require unique, innovative solutions.

With the convergence of technologies across industries and disciplines, medical innovation is poised like never before to provide better solutions to physicians, better value to health care payers and better health for people everywhere. To that end, we are creating mobile health solutions that will dramatically improve how diabetes and other diseases are managed.

For instance, you may very well be reading this on a smart phone, and if you are, you're not alone: About 5 billion people worldwide use mobile devices daily. By tapping into the global ubiquity of these devices, we can seamlessly connect and integrate patients and caregivers across the networks that touch their daily lives.

Consumer technologies plus smarter medical devices plus greater interest in personal health will bring about a revolution in how medicine is practiced and how medical innovation is delivered.

Imagine, as we have, your Blackberry or iPhone serving as your personal mobile health dashboard, aggregating physiologic data such as heart rate, glucose levels and even brain waves, providing real-time insight into what is going on in your body. Now consider expanding access to that same real time data to your physician or caregiver, enabling him or her to quickly intervene in the critical moments that can sometimes make the difference between life and death.

Diabetes is just one powerful example of a chronic disease that a mobile health platform can address. We have seen in other diseases -- cancer, cardiovascular disease and stroke -- how medical innovation saves lives and money. That's the motivation behind our focus in chronic disease management, finding new ways to work across the innovation ecosystem to make this technology widely available.

Convergence and innovation has given us the building blocks to make this possible today. What remains is overcoming the "final frontier" of barriers -- technological, cultural, social and political. If we are successful in addressing these issues, we will change the way chronic disease is managed forever.

The statistics are sobering, and the challenges are daunting. However, after seeing the creativity and motivation demonstrated in Cleveland last week, I am confident we're on the right course to empower patients, physicians, caregivers and health care systems to fundamentally improve the management of chronic disease around the world.

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